Athletic Training

156 ATHLETIC TRAINING one American boy who was a champion here, but who was beaten in an important Olympic final simply because he had contracted the habit of smoking cigarettes and was so vain of his ability as to believe that he could win in spite of it. He was warned often enough, but it required, Nature herself to show him what a fool he had been. (~) Do not use any kind of alcoholic drink. No man needs it, and no athlete who hopes to be a champion can afford to indulge in it in any form. Alcohol is a poison. It makes all the muscles of the body flabby and coun– teracts the good of physical exercise. An athlete who uses alcohol is simply tearing down with one hand what he builds up with the other through his exericse. It is a habit which grows stronger and stronger with use and, unless it is broken up immediately, it will eventually ruin the constitution of the strongest man. I always say to the man who cannot give up his habits of drink and to– bacco that the athletic field is no place for him. In my career I have encountered many men who were supposed to have heart trouble,